


You Were Red And You Liked Me Because I Was Blue

by MangaManiac



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: And please do comment, F/M, Fantasy AU, Half-mermaid!kuroo, Have fun everyone, I blame my angsty mind and too fluffy skate chapter for this, I don't think I'll write anymore for this, M/M, The violent kind of mermaids, mermaid!literally everyone besides kuroo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MangaManiac/pseuds/MangaManiac
Summary: This is an evil mermaid au inspired by a challenge of the week, the challenge was 'Blue'.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	You Were Red And You Liked Me Because I Was Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, this is super angsty and I'm not sorry. XD So I guess ... Read if you dare?

Kei had spent 50 years living on the rocks just off the coast with his family of mermaids, his pod, they’d spent that time luring sailors and unwary fishermen to them only to wreck their wooden monstrosities and eat them for fun. He enjoyed doing this to the humans, they’d move up and down the coast as they went.

If they didn’t the humans would start looking for him, and that certainly wasn’t a good thing. Now they’d settled near this small little place with wood structures standing up near the sand, and he was learning the routines of the humans that lived there.

After all his job was to find the ones that they could take without getting caught. He looked for ones that sailed alone, or spent too much time on their sea, he looked for the ones that felt safe in the waves. They were easier to pick off if they were willing to dive into the water.

It had been seven cycles of the sun and moon since they’d settled and he’d decided on three humans that they could take easily. He would give two of them off, but there was one that had caught his eye. He wanted to play with this human, he was young and fit and fearless. He was always alone, and Kei would find it easy to lure him after playing with him for a little while. He relayed the information for the other two humans to two of the other mermaids, and told them he had picked one to lure himself.

This wasn’t unusual so no one questioned him and they simply waited to get their meal, three humans would plenty for the eight of them to eat after all.

As the next sun and moon cycle began he swam closer to the surface, he knew the darker color of the scales that climbed his back would keep him concealed until the young man jumped into the water to use his nasty spear. He knew exactly where the man would keep his little wooden monstrosity before leaping into the water with no regard for his own safety.

Ten minutes after Kei arrived at the small reef where he knew the young man would stop, he saw one of those metal shells drop into the water. He quickly hid in a cave in the coral. He knew the eel that occupied it wouldn’t bother him. A few moments later, he felt the vibration of something disturbing the surface and he crept forward in the cave he currently occupied. The young man always circled the reef before he actually hunted for the fish he would catch. While he did that he was looking back out into the open sea. It seemed like he was looking for something out there. Kei didn’t understand it though, there was nothing out there for the human, certainly nothing he’d want.

It didn’t take long for the man to circle in front of his hiding spot, but as Kei knew he was looking out into the open sea.

_What a fool, this is the place with your prey. Why are you alerting them to your presence before hunting them?_ Kei thought to himself with a small twitch of his gills and his lips curled upwards, flashing his razor sharp teeth.

As the young man kept swimming past him, he slowly followed, making sure to keep in between the human’s body and the reef so he wouldn’t be seen yet. He had to school his features into cooperation, after all if he scared the human off right away they wouldn’t get the food they needed. So he had to be very careful with these interactions at first, just as always.

The human finished his lap of the reef before turning inwards and getting his spear ready, it seemed his senses were better than Kei had expected though. This human immediately trained his eyes on Kei instead of the reef where his focus should have been. He would be lying if he said he was expecting that to happen, and he immediately reversed his tail and swam further away from the human to make absolutely certain the spear couldn’t get him.

It seemed to be the right move though since the human seemed to lower his guard a little bit, his spear dropping slightly as he just stared at Kei. It was strange, most humans panicked when they first saw him as a mermaid. It was a natural reaction since they never showed themselves to humans unless they were going to kill them. But this one just held himself still in the water and stared at him.

Kei couldn’t help but stare back into those deep amber eyes, his own eyes had changed to blue when his tail had changed to the same color as he grew older. He missed the beautiful amber color, they rarely saw it in the waters so he often looked for it. It made the human in front of him even more of a treat since his skin was also a deep brown color, like a shark eggs color. It was truly beautiful and he felt himself drawn to it.

After a few more moments of staring the human seemed to decide he wasn’t being threatened as his spear fell to his side. It took Kei a moment to stop admiring the colors of this human to question how he wasn’t drowning after being underwater for so long. After all he’d only ever spent enough time watching to know where the young man stopped and the first part of his routine. But this human didn’t even seem to be struggling for breathe, and after a moment he found his answer.

There was some form of gills on the human’s throat, and Kei found himself second guessing what was happening and what he had found. The human motioned towards the surface and started to swim towards it, forcing Kei to follow.

They breached the water and he saw the human’s gills fade away on his throat as he pulled himself into his boat. There was a piece of the reef sticking out of the surface of the water nearby and Kei swam to it, he pulled himself onto the formation. His back faced the beach, and he worried about being seen by other humans but he was far too curious to simply leave this matter alone. So he swallowed back the fear and pulled his blue tail out of the water to lay on the reef in case he needed to push off and into the water quickly.

“What are you?” They both ended up asking at the same time, and that got the human laughing while Kei flared his gills.

“You go first.” The human finally spoke once he got back under control.

“What are you? I’ve never seen a human with gills, and your reaction to me was strange.” Kei asked immediately his gills rolled in and out against his skin, showing his curiosity without meaning to.

The human gave him a strange look and he seemed to withdraw from him, it took a few moments of strange expressions crossing the man’s face before he finally did this thing where he pushed all his breath out like he had given up or something. He watched as the human’s shoulders seemed to fall and he looked up at the sky like he was looking for something again.

“You’re a mermaid aren’t you?” The human asked, and Kei pressed his gills to his throat and felt his lips curl down. He was supposed to be asking the questions, not a nasty human. But he was still far too curious to stop the conversation there.

“Yes I’m a Japanese Angelfish mermaid.” Kei responded with little inflection to his voice, he had heard the term from one of his previous prey when he’d found himself to be curious what the humans called his kind.

“I see,” The human paused and Kei was about ready to jump back into the water in frustration. “My father was a red snapper mermaid, at least that’s what my mother says.”

_That’s not possible_. Kei’s thoughts immediately jumped to hating the idea that a mermaid would have a child with a human, but he also hated that in the back of his mind he couldn’t say it was a lie. A human with gills who didn’t react in fear to a mermaid was simply too much of an enigma to simply disregard the facts placed in front of him.

“I’ve never heard of a mermaid taking a human mate.” Kei decided to play it safe, this was rough territory for him. Mermaids didn’t hunt each other unless they were facing incredibly difficult times and could find no other food source, his pod certainly wasn’t in that desperate of need. But, they did eat humans, and if this one truly was half and half he couldn’t really decide which path was the correct one to take. He wanted to talk to his pod about what he had found, but he also knew it would probably get this human killed and he wasn’t sure he was ready for that yet.

“… I think he had planned to eat my mother. But something stopped him and she refused to tell me what it was, even going so far as to take it to the grave.” Kei realized the human had been speaking for a little bit while he mulled over whether or not he could eat the creature in front of him.

“I see, normally mermaids only view humans as a food source. I’m very curious about what could have possibly convinced him to change his mind in hunting her.” Kei watched the creature pull back away from him and he made an expression like pain but different. Kei realized he might have been to blunt in his statements, and he truly didn’t want to scare off this creature yet. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It is just the way things are for us.”

“Then why did you show yourself to me?” The creature tilted it’s head at him and it’s eyes seem to half way close, Kei recognized it as the expression humans usually gave him on their first contact. This was territory he knew how to navigate.

“I was curious about you, most humans don’t come out on the water all alone every day. I was worried that you were unsafe in your home.” Kei automatically gave the line he’d used a thousand times in his hunts, it was easy, practiced, rehearsed and the small upturn of his lips seemed to always put humans at ease.

“I don’t believe you, as you just admitted yourself mermaids only think of us as food. So, there’s no reason for you to feel any kind of sympathy towards me.” The creature shot back immediately at him, and Kei had to hold back a frustrated sound as he realized the creature had caught him so easily in a lie.

“You’re right we don’t under _normal_ circumstances. But you caught my eye when we first got here and I’ve been hiding you from my pod for that reason, otherwise there would normally be at least one other here with me to ensure we can get you to cooperate.” Kei marked it in his mind that the creature has used ‘we’ to refer to himself and humans, so the creature clearly thought of himself as human. That would make things easier for him so he didn’t have to struggle with the ‘no hunting other mermaids’ rule.

“I doubt that was the reason you came here alone.” The creature made the same expression at him, and he tried to shrink into himself making him appear as less of a threat. His gills fluttered slightly at his throat and he felt his cheeks heat up as he looked away from the human.

“Maybe not, like I said you _caught my eye_.” Kei made that drawn out breathing noise that the human had made earlier before looking back at the human with his lips turned down a little. “Can we start over? I didn’t mean to get us off on the wrong fin, I was very curious about you and didn’t mean to overstep. My name’s Kei.”

The human looked him up and down and seemed to think about his answer before he finally nodded and took a deep breathe.

“My name is Kuroo Tetsurou, I’m sorry I got frustrated with you earlier. You’re the first mermaid I ever remember meeting and I might have projected onto you a little bit because of my father.”

“Tetsurou…” Kei played around with the name on his tongue, he knew humans didn’t normally refer to each other by their second name. Something about respect that they preened about like a clownfish, but he’d learned using those names could get him into a human’s good graces as they said.

The human seemed to be thinking about something before he nodded a little and just stared at Kei. It took them a few more moments of silence before the human looked away.

“I need to get food now or I won’t eat tonight.” Tetsurou finally said as he moved to jump back into the water.

“Oh let me help! I’m the one who has interrupted your hunting schedule.” Kei immediately tried to make himself useful, it would keep the human trusting him.

“No, I like to hunt. I don’t want your help.” Tetsurou said as he jumped from the wooden monstrosity into the water and did his circle around the reef. Kei puffed his lip out and flared his gills, this human was going to be more difficult than he’d originally planned on.

After watching the human move around the reef and catch a few fish he pushed himself back into the water. His slime coating was starting to dry out from being in the wind and sun for too long with their conversation. So, it was welcome relief when his body slid smoothly back into the water, and he immediately smelled blood.

_That’s too much for some fish._ His mind immediately leaped into overdrive, trying to decide if he needed to fight or flee. His eyes searched the area quickly and saw the cloud of red growing bigger in the water, his gills flaring as his body recognized it as human blood. He shot towards the cloud, his mind losing control of his body as he felt the need to rip into the flesh of the dying human he smelled. Kei quickly reigned it in before he made it around the part of the reef that was hiding what he wanted though. He forced himself to stop and think before swimming over the reef at a more sedate pace so he could actually decide what danger there could be.

As he came down over the top of what now seemed like a sea of blood he saw something thrashing in the water, the skin on its back was a grey color with white tipped fins. After another thrash Kei caught sight of the shape of the things fins, and he immediately recognized it as a shark. With the way his senses were screaming it had the human he wanted in its mouth.

Mermaids and sharks shared the top spot for predators, and they tried to stay away from each other when it came down to food. But in this instance Kei would not let the shark have this piece of prey. He screamed at the thing, knowing his voice carried magic with it that would reverberate through the water and deter the shark from continuing its attack. As he did that he swam closer, letting the incredibly sharp teeth in his mouth flash at the shark and sinking his claws into the shark once he got close enough.

The monster finally let go of his human and shrunk back as Kei bared his teeth at it and flared his gills, the posturing making it very clear that he was going to fight for what the shark wanted to eat. His claws extended in front of him as he continued to flare his gills and the shark finally turned and swam away from them. Kei didn’t completely turn away from the other predator since he knew it could turn on him if it was hungry enough. But he did turn enough to grab ahold of the human and pull him towards the surface. He wouldn’t be able to drag the limp human’s body and the wooden monstrosity back to the shore so he only took the human. He didn’t have to worry about the young man being able to breath since he still seemed to have gills, but the paler the human grew the more concerned Kei became.

It only took him a few minutes to reach the shore with the human in his arms. He pushed the human as far out of the surf as he could without making it impossible for him to leave quickly. He became increasingly more worried as he saw other humans coming running towards them, and he knew he couldn’t let himself be seen anymore than he already was. He quickly turned around and swam far enough away that he knew the other humans wouldn’t be able to get to him and they wouldn’t worry about what he was. He knew they’d only seen his top fin and back scales which would mark him as some very large brightly colored fish.

But he knew he’d blown his pod’s cover.

_We can’t stay here any longer, we’ll take whatever humans we could get today._ Kei decided as he waited a little longer. The other humans were carrying Tetsurou off, and Kei thought back on whether he would even survive. The shark had taken him in the legs and then the side from what Kei could tell, it must have caught him by surprise. Tetsurou had already lost a lot of blood, and his flesh had been torn apart.

Kei finally realized that he’d made a horrible mistake, Tetsurou probably wouldn’t survive anyway and he’d lost them a valuable source of food. He couldn’t tell his pod about this, but he also knew he was going to come back smelling like human blood. So he had to come up with a plan.

It didn’t take long for a solution to make itself known as he felt sharp teeth bite harshly into his tail. _That fucking shark._ Kei screamed loudly as he threw his head back, the shark quickly let go of him as he immediately turned and sunk sharp teeth into the beast. The tooth sandpaper scales tore his mouth harshly, but the other predator should’ve known better. He hissed at the shark and let his eyes change to the pure black of an enraged mermaid as he turned on the shark and sunk sharp claws and teeth into it.

He tore flesh and made a cloud of blood in the sea, his claws pulled chunks of skin and muscle out of the beast. But he made sure to stop before he would kill it. He had to make an example of the other predator, no one was to attack a human in these waters for now. While they were in the area all other predators should stay away. His vicious attack on this beast would make sure the rest of the area would know better.

He did take the time to tear the tip off the top fin of the shark, a trophy to prove he’d done the deed and a way to prove the story he was thinking of for his pod.

* * *

“Kei, where were you?” Their leader, a black-tipped reef shark mermaid immediately confronted him as he made it back to the rocks the pod was occupying.

“Sorry Sawamura, I was tracking the human I was hunting. I was close to making contact with him when a white-tipped reef shark attacked him. I tried to scare it off so we could still have some food but it attacked me for trying to stop it. I fought with it, and made an example of it.” At this point Kei held out the fin tip to his leader. “It’s still alive but will know better than to hunt humans in our territory now.”

“And the human?” Sawamura asked as he took the fin from his pod member.

“Torn to shreds, the other reef dwellers took our fight as time to eat what they could. By the time the shark finally backed off there wasn’t anything worth trying to eat.”

Sawamura shook his head and his gills flared in what seemed to frustration, but he swam away from Kei.

“It’s not like you to make this kind of mistake Kei. You’re our best hunter under normal circumstances. But I’m sure you’re aware you’ll need to make up for this. Get your wounds treated for now, but starting with tomorrow’s cycle I want you looking for a new human to hunt.” Sawamura made his commands and then retreated into his cave in the rocks. Their leader wasn’t a good hunter, but he was by far the strongest in their pod and that was why he’d been designated as their leader.

“Of course, my leader.” Kei did his best to bow with an aching tail, once Sawamura was truly out of site Kei flared his gills and swam towards Shimizu. She was their healer as she was the best with magic, and she quickly went to work on his mouth and hands since they were in the worst shape.

A few hours passed and he was finally back to normal but he was exhausted and swam towards one of the larger caves where the rest of them would stay. He rested into the rock and thought on his prey, he didn’t really feel right thinking of the creature as prey anymore though. That thought annoyed him though, he was the best hunter, he should be able to separate himself from this creature. It was frustrating him that he was struggling so much more with this creature.

“Tetsurou.” He whispered to himself as he curled into the rock facing away from the entrance, he just couldn’t bring himself to want to attack the man. He hated that in the back of his head he knew he wouldn’t be able to hunt Tetsurou any longer. In the span of an hour that they’d spent together he’d become too attached to hunt a human.

_I’m a horrible mermaid, nobody else would be having this issue._

* * *

Kei had found another human to hunt within the span of a few cycles, and it was going rather well. He should have this human for them to eat within the current cycle, and his pod knew it. They had been waiting for him to get this human ready for hunting before they took the other two humans for food.

He swam to the surface as he watched the wooden monstrosity of his current human float above him. He saw a head look over the side as he swam upwards and he pulled his upper body onto the side of the wood, a smile plastered to his face.

The human greeted him happily, a smile crossing her face as she leaned forward and pecked his lips. He knew it was a human form of affection, so he let it happen. In fact he furthered the affection by placing a hand on the back of her head and pulling her back to him.

This was all part of the normal routine, gain the human’s affection to where they weren’t wary of you anymore. Then bring them to a secluded area away from whatever village or town they were near and get the human to give into them. A mermaid’s magic would generally force a human to trust them so that part was made easier. Then get the human to relax with you and pull them into the water, drowning them was easiest after all. No loss of blood or meat so they had the best chance of actually getting all the meat they needed.

He quickly suggested to the human that they go somewhere more secluded and she took the wooden monstrosity to an outcropping of cliffs that turned away from the village. He followed and she dropped the metal shell into the water as he peeked his head out of the water. He realized there was a small cave there, and he pulled his body out of the water to the cave. She was smiling at him again and she quickly moved towards him, their lips meeting again as she initiated things.

This was the part he hated the most, it always felt wrong to him, but it had to be done. He let her do what she wanted for a little bit until she seemed willing to give into him a little bit. Kei pushed back against her gently, and she went easily. Her back laid against the wet stone and he flashed his teeth at her, she didn’t seem nearly as worried about that as she should have. Of course, that was all part of the plan, get them familiar with the teeth and they wouldn’t be scared by them later.

It only took a few more moments of testing her limits before he felt it was safe to move on to the next part. He started to push her towards the edge of the cave, and she didn’t seem to realize as he continued this game of pretend where he would be affectionate towards her.

Finally he felt the edge of the cave stone, and in that moment he wrapped his arms tightly around her as he pushed off the cliff with his tail and into the water. He quickly dove down under the surface and held her body tightly as she trashed, searching for air she wouldn’t be getting. It took agonizing minutes before her body finally grew still in his grasp.

He closed his gills for a moment, forcing himself not to breath as a form of punishment for taking another life in this way. Finally he clasped her arms and torso with his and swam towards the rocks where his pod was, he had made up for his mistake and he needed them to know.

At least … that was the plan. Until he swam by the reef where he’d met Tetsurou and came face to face with the human himself. Tetsurou’s eyes shot towards the obviously dead woman in his arms and widened considerably. Kei couldn’t tell what emotions were moving across the man’s face, but none of them seemed to bode well for him. At least Tetsurou hadn’t struck out at him with his spear yet, but at this point Kei wasn’t sure what would hurt more.

His mind was racing with too much information, Tetsurou was alive and apparently well enough to be swimming again. He was carrying a corpse that was supposed to be the man in front of him. But, he couldn’t help but feel glad that it had ended up this way. That emotion jumped his mind into yet another line of thought, he couldn’t help but to wonder why he was so attached to this human. His eyes traced down Tetsurou’s body hating the obviously barely healed wounds that covered his left side. There were dips in the muscle and obvious punctures that would never come back, marks of the horrible thing that had happened to him.

Kei felt a horrible and incredibly strong need to find that shark again and tear it apart.

“Tetsurou.” Kei tried to start as he realized the man wouldn't attack him.

“No, don’t talk to me right now.” Tetsurou shook his head harshly and met Kei’s eyes again, he seemed to know why Kei had done it but he couldn’t come to terms with it yet. “I need time.”

The man swam away from him and back towards the surface, pulling himself slowly into his wooden monstrosity as Kei just stayed in the water hoping that he’d possibly come back.

_I’ve met him twice, and I can’t stop thinking that he’s beautiful._ Kei had noticed just how pale Tetsurou was compared to when they’d first seen each other, but he was still absolutely brilliant compared to Kei.

He hated having to let the man leave again, but he couldn’t follow Tetsurou back to shore. That was a lesson he had learned well as a child after being attacked by humans.

So, he continued to head back to his pod.

* * *

“You’re back.” Koushi smiled at him as they swam next to each other, their catches in hand.

“Yes, it was easy just as normal.” Kei responded without enthusiasm. They got to the rocks quickly and he see Hitoka had already made it back with her human for everyone to eat.

Kei had noticed tension growing in the past few days, they had running on almost empty and they had started to snap at each other with the hunger. But now they knew they wouldn’t starve, so there were many upturned lips as they finally laid their catches in a cave where they could eat safely. Of course, Koushi and him had to report to Sawamura before they could actually eat. But since Koushi was with him it wouldn’t take long.

A few minutes later the eight of them in the pod gathered around the bodies they’d gather and they ate happily. They could probably get one more round of hunting in for this place before they’d gather too much suspicion and needed to leave.

At least Kei hoped that would be the decision they made, since he now knew he could possibly see Tetsurou again.

<hr>

Almost 25 cycles had passed before they felt the need to hunt again, it was enough time for the humans to not be as wary again and for them to not be hungry yet. In that time Kei had met up with Tetsurou six times in different areas to talk about things. The human seemed just as interested in him as Kei was interested in the human.

This would be meeting number seven, though it wouldn’t last very long since he needed to go and actually find more humans to hunt.

They had found a rock outcropping more than ten blue whales from where the rocks where the pod was and five blue wales from the coast. As Kei swam towards the rocks he could see the wooden monstrosity with what Tetsurou called the ‘anchor’ already set up, that meant is human would be waiting for him.

Kei felt his gills flutter in anticipation and happiness as he got close enough to pull himself onto the rock, he felt a hand on his forearm and looked up to see Tetsurou lifting him out of the water. They smiled at each other and he let Tetsurou bring him all the way up onto the rock, it didn’t take long for the human’s lips to be on his own. That had been a new occurrence as of two meetings ago, but for the first time ever he actually enjoyed the feeling. Mermaids showed affection certainly, but anything past a gentle touch or cuddle in the night turned to mating, and that was not a nice experience. This, this was very different from mermaids.

Kei found he couldn’t get enough of it, but he had to make things quick and he needed to talk with Tetsurou today.

He pushed on Tetsurou’s chest, indicating that he didn’t want to do that anymore and Tetsu listened.

“I’m sorry, but we need to discuss something.” Kei looked at Tetsu as he said it and the human seemed to understand the urgency in his normally neutral voice.

“What is it? Are you moving on?” Kei had explained that they would eventually have to move on during the first meeting after his hunt, and he found that they had both started to dread the day that it would come.

“We will be, soon.” Kei had to stop for a moment, he knew what he wanted wasn’t conventional and he could put them both in danger but he felt it was right. “I don’t want to leave though, I want to stay here with you. I know we can make this work, and I desperately want it. But, if my pod found out we could both be in a lot of danger they’d likely kill us both.”

Tetsurou looked at him with an expression Kei had learned to call shock, and then contemplation. He wasn’t one to hold back on what the danger could be, and he certainly wanted to give Tetsu the best chance to make a decision. But, the faster they decided to get away and actually do so the better the chance they had of making it.

He spent almost all the time they had waiting for an answer from Tetsurou, and he worried he’d never get an answer from the human. He was moments away from needing to leave when Tetsu turned to him and pulled him back and forced their lips together. This was different from the other times they’d done the same thing, Tetsu seemed to be trying to force them together and Kei wasn’t sure what it meant. Tetsu finally calmed down after a little while and he leaned away again.

“I want to figure this out with you.” Tetsu finally said without looking at Kei, and while Kei felt his gills flutter in excitement he was also worried about why Tetsu wouldn’t look at him.

“What are you worried about?” He had to ask, had to know.

“I don’t want you to get killed.” Tetsu finally spoke quietly and Kei felt his blood run cold. He knew it was a possibility but it was different hearing it come from someone he planned to make a mate.

“I know, but we have to take that chance.” Kei finally responded with a small smile on his face.

They quickly planned for that night, they had to leave under the cover of darkness. They wouldn’t go far, they just needed somewhere they could hide out for a few days in safety. Kei had already decided the best place to do that would be the cave where he’d taken the woman from his last hunt. At the time they planned to get there the tide would be close enough to get into it easily, and the rest of the day it would be hard to access since the tide never actually reached it.

* * *

Kei had made sure to lay near the edge of the pod’s cave that night, and he waited until they were asleep before he moved out of the cave and quickly swam towards the reef where he’d first made contact with Tetsurou.

It was almost too easy to get there, he didn’t see any life in between the cave and the reef. They had decided it would be better if Tetsu left his wooden monstrosity in the human area, it made too much noise as it moved through the water and they simply couldn’t risk it. He spotted Tetsu once he made it to the reef the man was laid across the reef, holding onto the edges to keep himself as inconspicuous as possible. If Kei didn’t know where to look he might have swam past Tetsu, they only took time to say hello before heading towards the cave.

Kei should have listened to the nagging feeling in the back of his head that things were going to easily.

They had linked hands to swim to the cave, Kei was faster so he was pulling Tetsu as the human kicked behind him. But the warm hand that had been in his own was suddenly pulled from his grip and Kei flicked his tail around to turn.

What he saw made his blood run cold.

All seven of his pod members were behind him, Koushi, Ryuunosuke, and Hitoka held Tetsu in vice like grips as he struggled to get away from them. Kei felt dread creep across his scales and his gills flared out in rage.

“What are you doing?” Kei all but shouted at them, subconsciously trying to cover fear with bravado.

“What are _you_ doing?” Sawamura growled out at him, anger obvious in his voice and body language. His gills were also flared at Kei and his teeth were bared to remind Kei how much danger they’d put him in.

“I was hunting.” Kei tried to think quickly as he needed to get Tetsu away from his pod. “I was just taking him to the cave to kill him so we could eat.”

“Well if that’s the case then you won’t mind if we kill him right now.” Sawamura almost growled at him and Kei couldn’t help but respond.

“No! This is my kill, and you’ve ruined it now. Let me finish it in the cave.” Kei tried to keep the begging tone out of his voice, but it didn’t seem to work as Ryuunosuke sunk sharp teeth and claws into Tetsurou.

“I said stop it Ryuu.” Kei shouted as he tried to swim at someone who use to be his friend.

Tobio and Asahi took his moment of anger as a chance to grab Kei and hold him in place.

“You lied to us Kei.” Sawamura shouted at him, the reverberation of the water making Kei try to pull away instinctually. “You coveted a human for yourself, you lied and said he was dead. Then you lied to us by sneaking away and talking with him. Honestly, you should know better than to think you could sneak away from the one that taught you.”

So Koushi was following him during his meetings, that means they knew what had been happening. So they must have heard that Kei planned to run away with Tetsurou.

“Please stop Sawamura, I’ll go with you. Just let him live, let him go back to the humans.” Kei knew the game was up so he pleaded instead, if he could save Tetsu’s life it will have been worth it.

“No, he knows too much and an enigma like him shouldn’t exist anyway.” Sawamura nodded at Tetsu’s captors who took that cue to bite and dig claws into Tetsu’s skin.

Kei hated the way the screams tore at his heart, he thrashed in his own captors grip only to feel sharp teeth sneak into his own flesh and scales. One reason mermaids didn’t ‘kiss’ as Tetsu was called it was because their teeth held a poison that only activated in a mermaid’s system. Kei wondered if Tetsu was feeling the poison that Kei now felt pulse through his veins.

It really didn’t matter though as they continued to bite chunks out of the human he’d come to love. The blood seeping into the sea around them reminded him of the first day they’d met. _Tetsu had survived the shark attack, he could survive this._ Kei hoped, he was desperate for it to be true.

But the screams wouldn’t stop.

Finally they seemed to have had enough of torturing his mate, as Sawamura swam in front of him.

“He’ll die in the same way all of our prey does. Make sure you watch.” Sawamura sneered as he swam up to Tetsu, taking one last look at Kei to make sure he was watching.

Sawamura dug his claws into the sides of Tetsu’s throat, closing them around the man’s gills. He quickly tore Tetsu’s gills from his throat, and Kei was forced to watch as the panic set in. Tetsu realized he couldn’t breathe anymore and he started to thrash in the mermaid’s grip his body seeking air. As his movement grew less and less controlled they let go of Tetsu, enjoying watching him struggle to swim to the surface before his body finally gave up on him. They could all smell the moment his body gave in and the rest of his pod converged on the fresh food.

Without captors to hold him up anymore Kei drifted down towards the ocean floor, the poison would never take him fast enough to keep the pain from ripping his heart apart.

**Author's Note:**

> *Hands you tissues and a mug of hot tea/chocolate/coffee.* There there friend you've made it through this monstrosity.
> 
> Please let me know what you all thought, I threw this together in approximately 2.5 hours. So ya.
> 
> Love you guys.
> 
> -Lakeness Monster


End file.
